How Big Should Appliqué Letters Be?

The minimum size

In the ThreadType appliqué tool the letter height runs from 1 inch (25.4 mm) to 10 inches, and it opens at 2 inches. Professional embroidery software sets similar limits for its appliqué fonts, in the region of 1 to 1.6 inches for the smallest ones, and only bold, simple fonts work that small.

Working below 2 inches

• Choose a heavy font (Anton, Archivo Black, Alfa Slab One, Fredoka or Luckiest Guy). Thin strokes close up at this size.
• Use a narrower satin cover, about 1.5 mm, so enough fabric shows inside each stroke. Keep a zigzag tack-down at or under the satin width, or use a running-stitch tack-down, which has no width.
• Keep the word short, and use capitals; lowercase letters are about 70% of the height.
• Check the stitch preview zoomed in on small holes and corners before you pay, and stitch a test.

Typical sizes by project

Capitals and lowercase

The letter height in the tool is the height of the capital letters. Lowercase letters such as a, c and e are only about 70% of that, so a lowercase word at 2 inches has much smaller letters than the same word in capitals. If you want lowercase, go up a size.

The satin border adds to the size

The border sits on the letter’s edge, so the finished stitched piece is a little taller and wider than the letter height you set. A thinner satin cover keeps the difference smaller. Round letters such as O, S and G also poke slightly past the height of flat-topped ones.

How wide will the word be?

Appliqué letters are big, and a word gets wide fast. As a rough rule, each bold letter is about 0.9 times the letter height wide, so a word’s width is roughly the number of letters times 0.9 times the height. Here are measured examples, before the satin border adds a few millimetres.

Check the width against your hoop

• Sewing fields are smaller than the hoop’s name suggests. Common home hoops sew roughly 4 by 4, 5 by 7, 6 by 10 and 8 by 12 inches. Commercial machines and large frames go well beyond that.
• That means a home hoop suits short words, one or two large letters, or a single initial. Longer words need a large hoop, a commercial machine or a design split across hoopings.
• The tool shows the finished width and height before you pay, so you always know before you buy.
• To make a word fit, use a shorter word, a smaller height (down to 1 inch, with a bold font and a narrower satin cover), or slightly tighter letter spacing.
• Arch and Arch flat layouts are a compact way to fit a team name on a curved patch.